


They Say, Still, That No Duel Ever Matched It

by AnorOmnis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26950792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnorOmnis/pseuds/AnorOmnis
Summary: Dumbledore comes to challenge his old friend and put an end to the war.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Ariana Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	They Say, Still, That No Duel Ever Matched It

The spell cast upon the hill was incredibly powerful - more powerful indeed than any that had been levied against it since the day it had first been wrought from the ground at wand-point. In a single magnificent instant, the two hundred foot high earthen fortress was unmade. Every inch of it disintegrated into fine dust. The creator of the barrier, who had until then been concealed from the open plain, walked wonderingly through the powdery hail. He extended a hand, catching some particles on one dragonhide gloved finger, where they glinted mysteriously. He licked it.

“Gold…” he muttered. The entire castle had been transmuted into gold dust.

The blond-haired wizard’s curious expression disappeared, suddenly replaced by recognition, and a wide-eyed excitement. He turned sharply to the plain before him, spreading his arms wide and baring his chest, and bellowed, “Albus!”

His words echoed far and wide through the red, empty expanse. At first, there seemed to be no response. But after a pause, a patch of air and grass, perhaps a hundred feet from the wizard, began to shimmer and vibrate intensely. A moment later, the shining air drew back, not quite unlike a curtain, and a man stepped out into the field.

He was tall and thin, and he had a long, flowing auburn beard, patched with lines of white, and his crooked nose supported a pair of battered old spectacles, behind which were piercing blue eyes. His wand was loosely clasped in his left hand, the tip still glowing from its masterful Transfiguration of the fortress. Albus Dumbledore had arrived.

“You came,” said the blond wizard. His smile made him seem much younger than his sixty five years of age, recalling the time when he had been a handsome youth, and his name, Grindelwald, had not cast a shadow that threatened to engulf all of Europe.

“I came,” Dumbledore confirmed quietly.

“I’ve missed you, old friend.”

Dumbledore made no reply. His eyes were cast on the ground before Grindelwald’s feet, not rising to meet the wizard’s face.

“I presume you’ve not come to join my efforts,” Grindelwald said, “and to lend me your aid in creating the world we dreamed of?”

“I have not.” The reply was bitter and sorrowful.

Grindelwald smiled sadly. “Then you’ve come to ‘correct your mistake’, no doubt. To put down the mad dog you let loose so many years ago?”

“You were never mad,” said Dumbledore, suddenly fierce. He raised his eyes to meet Grindelwald’s. They were wet with tears. “Never mad – never anything less than the most brilliant wizard alive.” He raised his arm, turning his wand upon Grindelwald. “But in one thing you are right - I have come to correct my mistake.”

Grindelwald raised his wand in turn. The two wizards began slowly to pace around each other, leaving a circle of footprints in their wake. “And yet,” Grindelwald said, “you have had ample opportunity to come and face me. Even as I have had opportunity to face you. But I did not wish to disrespect what once was, and kept myself far from Britain. Why come now? Why not… sooner?” His eyes glinted. “I have to admit, Albus – when I nearly burned Paris to the ground and you did not appear, I began to believe you would never show.”

Dumbedore’s gaze fell upon Grindelwald’s wand. “Nurmengard,” he said. “A prison of a thousand cells torn from the flesh of a mountain. You were the most exceptional wizard I’ve ever known, Gellert, but your strengths did not lay in complex Transfiguration. Even I could not have cast that spell.” He paused, then spoke in a low voice, “You found it.”

Grindelwald smiled dazzlingly, and Dumbledore’s heart faltered momentarily, assailed by nostalgia. “Yes,” he said, “I found it.” His voice was earnest and excited. “ _ I found it! _ I have the Wand, Albus! Don’t you see? The Hallows are real, they’re out there!” He stopped pacing, and waved his hands passionately. Decades seemed to strip away from him, and he was a young man again, driven and idealistic and longing for a new world. 

“Come, Albus – join me! It’s not too late. We can make the world again, and it will be a good place for good people! Where the weak need not worry, for the strong will always protect them! Where wizards need not fear persecution!” He clenched his fist tight and looked up, his gaze burning the heavens.

“Please, Albus,” he said, and his voice was softer now – more melancholy. “Please. I have missed you more terribly than you know. Come, join me, and let us go back to the way things were.” His wand hung limply by his side. His golden eyes were flecked with hope and sorrow in equal measure.

Dumbledore stood quietly for a moment. Wind coursed through the plain, lifting up the dust and scattering it wildly about them, turning the world a reddish-brown. He took a deep breath.

“I am older, and wiser now, I hope, than the days when those words could stir the flames in me, letting me ignore the dark underbelly of your dreams,” he said.” You have spilled the blood of thousands, Gellert. Whatever good was once in you is long gone.” He raised his wand again. His figure stood resolute and striking against the dusty sky. “And the way things were, Grindelwald?” Grindelwald’s face hardened at the sound of his surname. “You’ll forgive me – the last I recall is you fleeing and leaving me to bury my sister in painful shame. I hope to never go back to the way things were.” His voice was hard and unyielding.

Hurt flashed through Grindelwald’s eyes, but was immediately replaced by rage, so all-consuming that it rushed through his entire body, contorting his face, clenching his wand.

“So be it.” He raised his wand. A pillar of inky-black shadow descended from the sky, covering his body, and the next instant, it vanished, taking him with it. Grindelwald was nowhere to be seen.

“You should have known better, ­ _ Dumbledore _ .” His voice sneered, echoing from the air and the ground and the trees. “I have the Wand. You cannot hope to match me.”

“Perhaps,” Dumbledore said calmly. “But this tragedy has gone on long enough – it is time for me to try.”

He flicked his wand at the ground. The earth next to him shifted, suddenly flowing like water, and drew up next to him in the form of a large ball. Another flick, and the ball was moulded into an enormous dog. It stood before Dumbledore, almost level with his shoulders, spittle dripping from its monstrous jaws, and howled a challenge that resounded loudly throughout the empty plain. It tasted the air with its tongue, sniffing all the while, until it found the smell it was searching for. It barked at Dumbledore, signaling a direction with a jerk of its massive head.

“Thank you,” said Dumbledore. He raised both of his hands, incanting under his breath. The effect of his spell was not immediately apparent. Moments later, the hound whimpered, curling itself into a ball for warmth. The world was turning cold. Even as Dumbledore’s arms were outstretched above him, his beard was flecked with slivers of ice. The focus of the chilling frost was a patch of ground a few hundred feet away, almost entirely concealed by the icy wind whirling above and around it in a closed sphere.

Grindelwald’s voice roared indecipherably through the blizzard. The icy globe burst, exploding outwards as a shockwave flattened the earth around it, moving across the plain at a dizzying speed. Dumbledore flicked his wand as it approached, conjuring a silver shield. The shockwave crashed into the shield with incredible force, and a terrible sound, hollow and screeching, resounded from the shield, but it held.

A loud  _ crack! _ split the air, and Grindelwald stood once more before Dumbledore. He brushed at his robes, which were now wet and matted with melting ice. “A blizzard, Dumbledore? Interesting - I seem to recall that you had a rather particular preference for scorching fire. Shall I  _ remind you?” _

He shouted the last words, waving his wand through the air, and a line of green flames erupted from the ground before him, rushing toward Dumbledore, who quickly conjured a large watery bubble around him in response. Grindelwald twirled his wand elegantly, like a conductor’s baton, and the flames parted into two rows, dancing at his command, forming a circle around the bubble and slowly closing in from all sides. The conjured hound barked as it was unable to escape the inferno, yelping miserably as it was burned to a crisp, its body decaying back into the dirt it came from.

The bubble began to let off steam as the fire drew in, whistling shrilly like a boiling kettle. Within it, Dumbledore muttered an incantation. The bubble began to grow, increasing in size until it was nearly as large as a house. It wobbled dangerously, then popped, a hissing spray falling outward from its ruin, dousing the emerald fires.

Grindelwald looked curiously at Dumbledore. “A blizzard, an aegis, and a bubble - either your talent has waned with age, or you aren’t yet trying to hurt me.” He stepped forward, tapping his leather boot impatiently. “Will you merely defend yourself from my spells all day?” He continued mockingly. “Look what has become of you - Albus Dumbledore, the man who could have been the mightiest warlock the world had ever seen, become a humbled and pathetic schoolmaster. How tragic your story has become.” He spat viciously.

Across the expanse, Dumbledore’s posture changed. He stood straighter and taller, and held his wand in a tight grip. “For myself, I see it as the sole success of my life.” He looked directly at Grindelwald, “In one thing, however, you’re quite right. I believe it’s time that we brought this farce to an end.” He waved his wand, mirroring Grindelwald’s earlier movements, and drew a tide of flames from the ground. 

  
  


But the flames were not as Grindelwald’s had been. Where Grindelwald’s fires had been the elegant notes of a brisk melody, Dumbledore’s were the peak of its crescendo. They blazed red, tall and wild, and consumed everything in their path. The landscape was transformed within moments. Where seconds ago had been silent wasteland there was now inferno - walls of flame nearly thirty feet high raced across Grindelwald from all directions, obliterating all in their path.

  
  


Grindelwald quickly flicked his wand in response, and the earth before him trembled and rose up, forming a series of hills. The transfiguration was in vain, though, as Dumbledore’s conflagration tore through the earth and leveled the ground with the force of a hurricane. Grindelwald hesitated only for a moment before muttering an incantation, his wand moving too quickly and tracing too intricate a pattern through the air for any to follow. 

Thunder rang through the plain, and a tremendous dark cloud loomed into existence in the flame’s path. Grindelwald grinned, and with a flick of his wand, the cloud emptied its innards, and a ferocious torrent of water cascaded down onto the fire.

  
  


But it was no match. Dumbledore’s face was harsh and contorted with anger as he swung his wand arm wildly before him - every vein popping and red and rageful. The flame burned even hotter, its red incandescence growing blindingly white, and the water faded into vapour before it came within ten feet of the blaze.

  
  


Grindelwald looked disturbed, his eyes fearfully observing the unquenchable flame, and a tremor shook the hand that held the Elder Wand, but he stood his ground, and, eyes glinting, roared, “ _ Umbra Nativitatis!” _

  
  


For a moment, nothing happened. The flames continued to surge onward, and they were almost upon Grindelwald, ready to devour him whole, when -

  
  


\- An earsplitting keen rent the sky, drowning out all sound, even the rough growling of the fire. The tip of the Elder Wand glowed dark and murky, and it was emitting a mess of some matter fundamentally opposed to light. The unlight grew heavier and thicker, and began to take form, first as mist, then as vapour, then as an obscene shadowy fluid, condensing itself finally into a recognizable shape.

  
  


It was a pair of arms. They were darker than black, and sapped the light from the world about them, and dripped with shadow and sludge and evil. They grabbed at the mist around them, pulling further away from the Wand, which obliged, belching more of the profane and unholy muck into being. A head followed, with tangled, clumped hair, oily strands of which reached down all the way to the now emerging waist, and legs, until the Wand had finished its birth and the shade had slopped out into reality. 

  
  


It lifted its impossibly thin limbs from the ground, balancing awkwardly, and raised its head - and it was a woman - and her mouth was opened wider than the proportions of a human face would have permitted in a world of light and joy, and it continued to scream, and the sorrow of her voice echoed throughout Europe.

  
  


Grindelwald was unnerved by the spell he had wrought, but quickly flicked his wand, directing the apparition to turn to the oncoming blaze. She obeyed. And the wall of fire, which had withstood the machinations of earth and water, quailed at the sound of her scream, taking fright at the terror of her unlight, and it disobeyed its master, and turned from Grindelwald in flight. The inferno vanquished, Grindelwald deftly sliced his wand through the air, Silencing the shade, though her face remained rent open in agony.

  
  


Dumbledore shifted. He had been silent for the past several moments, from the moment the scream had torn through the world, but his quiet was born not of fear, but of tragedy. He moaned, suddenly, a melancholy ache quavering through his voice.

  
  


“ _ Ariana. _ ”

  
  


The spectre turned her head at the sound of the name, and looked at Dumbledore, accusation dripping from its void-like eyes. He refused to meet its gaze, and looked instead at Grindelwald.

  
  


“You may as well look at her, Dumbledore,” Grindelwald let out a wheezing, broken laugh, “You’ll not get to see her again.” He leaned unsteadily on his feet, swaying a little. The Dark Magic had drawn a toll from him - he looked older, more gaunt, and his handsome face seemed suddenly skeletal.

  
  


“I came here prepared to kill you,” said Dumbledore, “and yet you’ve sunken even lower than I would have ever imagined, Gellert.” His voice was weary. “Lower than I could ever have dreamed.”

  
  


Grindelwald laughed again, but cut off in a sudden coughing fit, which brought him to his knees, heaving over into the dirt. The shade stood a few feet before him, uncaring of its master’s health - its eyes remained fixed on Dumbledore. “It’s all your fault, you know,” Grindelwald said, wiping his mouth with a scorched sleeve. “That damned… fire....” he breathed heavily between the words, gulping in the air. “To think you’ve come so far - matching me with the Wand itself. There will never be a wizard to challenge you in this world, Albus, never. That much I can promise. Merlin himself would tremble before you.” He coughed again, and speckled the earth before him with droplets of dark blood. 

  
  


“Still,” he raised his head. “It’s checkmate, now. I win. You’re not going to kill your little sister again, are you?” He inclined his head questioningly, and the girl inclined her own in unison.

  
  


The world was silent. 

  
  


Then. “Perhaps death is too merciful a fate for you, Gellert.”

  
  


Grindelwald looked up at him wonderingly. “Hard, Albus - hard and cruel. The boy I knew would have fallen to his knees and wept upon hearing my words.”

  
  


“That boy could not have survived this war without hardening his heart.”

  
  


“True,” Grindelwald shrugged carelessly, “but what’s the worth of such survival, I wonder?”

  
  


“I have not walked on the footpaths of Hell to come and bandy words with you here, Grindelwald.” Dumbledore drew his wand. The girl immediately moved to stand in between him and his foe, her shadowy feet squelching against the ground as she walked.

  
  


“That’s true enough,” Grindelwald conceded, grinning. He pulled himself to his feet, shaking unsteadily for a moment, then righting himself. “But I don’t think your heart is yet as hard as you’d like to pretend. You’ve been a broken man from the moment you set a curse to Ariana’s heart-”

  
  


“ _ You have no proof!” _

  
  


“- and I don’t think your dear, noble soul could handle killing her again.” Grindelwald smiled, and his perfect teeth were now brittle, rotting, hideous. He spread his arms wide in challenge, the motion disturbing his balance, causing him to step awkwardly from side to side as he spoke.

  
  


“You won’t be able to drown your guilt in a broken nose this time, Albus! No easy absolution for your sins. Aberforth will not come to relieve your soul - there will be no punishment from the righteous. No - this time, you will perish at my hand, or you will live with the guilt forever.”

  
  


“I will not falter.” Dumbledore’s reply was firm and unyielding. “I would gladly bear the guilt of the foulest of evils if it meant bringing an end to your tyranny. I will not put my own conscience before the needs of wizardkind. And that,” he turned his wand upon the girl, “is not my sister.”

  
  


Grindelwald looked mutinously at Dumbledore, then flicked his fingers. 

  
  


“Al-bus?”

  
  


The Silencing Charm had been broken. The shade’s screaming had ceased, and from somewhere in the bowels of its darkness, cracked sounds, almost human, had emerged.

  
  


“No.” Dumbledore’s voice was less firm now.

  
  


“Al-bus. Why?” The wraith extended a spindly arm, and it seemed to grow, and grow, until it was nearly a hundred feet long, rapidly reaching Dumbledore.

  
  


“ _ No.”  _ Dumbledore’s voice was fierce, but his eyes were wet with hot tears.

  
  


“Al-bus.  _ Please _ .”

  
  


Dumbledore shut his eyes tight, screwing his face up in concentration, and fiercely whispered. “ _ Expecto Patronum!” _

  
  


A silvery white phoenix burst forth from the tip of his wand, dazzling and glorious in the sun, its vitality obverse to the girl’s unlight, and it plummeted toward her, swooping down from the sky. Light crashed into dark, and a frantic mixture of the two began to revolve around them with rapidly increasing speed, till they were obscured entirely by a large sphere of alternating tones.

  
  


_ “Expelliarmus! _ ”

  
  


Grindelwald did not see the spell coming, fixed as his eyes were on the sphere. The jet of red light collided into him with incredible force, knocking the Elder Wand from his hand, and sending him flying thirty feet through the air like a limp ragdoll, skidding and thudding and scraping on the ground as he landed.

  
  


His vision was blurry and weak, and it took a moment for his eyes to regain focus. Dumbledore stood at the site where the sphere had been, but no evidence of the celestial struggle seemed now to be left there - the land was unmarked, save for the scorching it had endured in the earlier blaze. Dumbledore’s lips were moving silently. Grindelwald thought that he could make out the words “Goodbye.”

  
  


The next moment, Dumbledore stood before him, robes billowing from the Apparition. The Elder Wand was clutched in his left hand. He sighed loudly, and sank to his knees, sitting down before Grindelwald. Silence ensued.

  
  


“That was a very powerful Patronus,” Gellert said, at length.

  
  


“I was thinking of you,” Albus said simply.

  
  


Silence came back. There were no words to be said, now, after all. But then the feelings all came crashing through at once, and Gellert heard himself sob, and his mouth opened to ask the question which carried all the hurt and betrayal and pain he had tried so hard to mask.

  
  


“Why, Albus?”

  
  


Dumbledore fingered the Elder Wand delicately, passing it slowly from hand to hand, his eyes peering over it from behind his half-moon spectacles. Finally, he stood, pocketing the wand, and began to walk away from Grindelwald. Just before he left, he turned and spoke his last.

  
  


“For the Greater Good, Gellert.”


End file.
